mitt romney and barack obama really neck and neck whether you're looking at the national polls or the battleground state polls. >> yeah, that's right. there's no question about it, joe. and you can see that the -- as we've gotten a little bit further away from that first debate where president obama performed so poorly, you can see that the lingering effects of it have been a little less than we might have thought before. there's no question mitt romney helped himself a little bit in terms of his likability, in terms of conservative and republican enthusiasm. the race in terms of the national numbers with back to being, as you said, joe, a jump ball. i keep looking at that ohio number at the end. when you think about the closer we get to election day, the more we have to think about what are the paths to 270 electoral votes. that ohio number at five is still a big problem for romney if he's going to try to get all the way there. >> richard wolffe, the bottom line is if mitt romney cannot win ohio, and at this point you've got early voting going in, absentee voting going in, that's hap